Yes, Aaron Payne has not covered himself in glory. I found it telling earlier this year when Richo agreed that we needed more NRL experience players in our Cup team. Almost as if it was a plea from the coach.
End of the day, it is injuries, poor roster management and it is the first year of any real direction across the grades. Give it a couple of years and we'll see. Right now the Raiders and Bulldogs are a few years down that path and are right at the top of most grades from Matts onwards.
Getting belted every week effects the players confidence, it does not help develop young players whatsoever.
How do we get player ID and player development so wrong ?
We have not had a fast winger since Allan Fitzgibbon, I can’t remember the last time we had a controlling halfback with a good kicking game and we very rarely have forwards with aggression, willing to run the ball at speed, use footwork or a step.
I understand not every rep junior will progress to NRL, but we have a production line of them that go backwards in our system and as far as the forwards go it seems a common occurrence they all stagnate due to playing with a lack of aggression, lack of intensity, not willing to run the ball hard or often and no unpredictably in their game such as changes of direction, change of pace, footwork or a step.
As others have mentioned sure we also seem to regularly lack forwards with size, but size alone won’t take the player to the NRL. Sure it helps, but it’s the above listed traits that are regularly missing and what is causing the problem of players not progressing and poor results because of it.
Alex Seyfarth was constantly ripping and tearing when playing NSW Cup for us as was Shawn Blore, hence the reason there was no doubt both of these players would eventually bring that quality to NRL level despite plenty of our fans doubting them at the time.
